A healthy Acquisition

As discussed elsewhere, Acquisition is a well known way for business expansion. We had already mentioned about some acquisition in IT sector, Here we report from the Indian health care segment. Fortis, a leading Indian healthcare firm has acquired ten hospitals from Wockhardt Hospitals. The acquisition provides the company a pan-India presence by securing a strong footprint in southern, western and Eastern India. With this acquisition Fortis own 38 hospitals with 5,180 beds and is second only to Apollo Hospitals. The newly acquired hospitals are in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. This move is in tune with their stated ambition of reaching 40 hospitals by 2012. Economically also the acquisition makes sense as it typically costs around Rs. 70 lakhs to put up a bed in a metro. But in this acquisition Fortis has paid less than Rs. 60 lakhs- a good bargain indeed.